Digital Customer eXperience is the New Battle Ground

Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies is back for episode three of this UpClose Podcast Series. So far of The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing, we’ve discussed influencer marketing and data overload. On this episode, we’re focusing on digital customer experience. This is a big topic, and we cover as much as we can in this short podcast episode. The statistics we point out further bolster the argument to engage on the digital customer experience (CX) battle ground.

Digital Customer Experience as a Differentiator

The B2B Landscape of today is digital first. Dayle says the best customer experience comes from looking at where people want to engage – currently, that’s on digital channels. Products can be imitated, but a brand’s customer experience can be the differentiator. According to Harvard Business Review, “Those who have the best experiences will spend 140% more than those who have the poorest experiences.” If you don’t pay attention to CX, it will affect your bottom line.

3 Questions to Ask as a B2B Marketer

1 – How has my customer changed in the last three years? Where do they want to connect with me now?

Modern consumers are searching for information everywhere, and when they can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll quickly move to the next brand that can help them. Dayle shares how a Lithium Technologies study showed that 29% of consumers prefer communicating via website, blog, or social media, compared to 17% preferring in store, and 16% preferring email. Consider this statistic when strategizing around the customer experience.

2 – How can I activate my most passionate customers? How do I develop trusted relationships with them?

The brands that put the customers’ wants, needs, and expectations at the heart of the brand experience are those that will ultimately win long-term customer loyalty. According to Lithium Technologies, 73% will spend more if they love your brand. Investing the time to understand behavioral, transactional and social data points will cultivate those connections and lead to increased revenue.

3 – How can I take advantage of all the data on digital channels? Can I measure ROI and can I get to know my customers better?

A brand’s digital presence is also a strong influencer on purchasing behavior. Dayle notes that 32% of adults say they are likely to spend more on products and services from a brand that communicates with them, and 31% will spend more with a brand that shares entertaining and engaging content via social media.

Brands Excelling at Customer Experience

Microsoft moved all of their support to an online community for Power BI, thereby reducing their number of complaints to zero. The online community has afforded Microsoft $145M Case Deflection Savings and the added benefit of $2.24M in SEO value. From this data, it’s clear that Microsoft’s customers want a self-service option.

Zuora followed a similar approach and set up a community to post solutions to common customer problems. It’s a win-win situation because it allows agents to work on more complicated issues, and it saves the organization close to $500,000/month (an annual savings of approximately $6M from 2016 to 2017). Consumers can find answers in the community to simple and complex problems.

In keeping with Dayle’s stylish personal brand, I asked him what’s in style this season with customer experience? He says the only differentiator for brands is the experience. People can always mock a product, but brands are starting to figure out that they will win with the experience they deliver. Next season he predicts we will see real ROI from digital CX and even more successful use cases. Dayle sees what’s next in three ways regarding digital CX:

Fad: The current fad is predictive analytics. It’s complex and not scalable and, yet, still unproven.

Failure: What hasn’t worked for B2B marketers is relying on transactional data alone. There are too many data points not to use.

Flourishing: The one thing flourishing for B2B marketers is social. But, brands must be able to integrate that into delivering an awesome digital CX.

Lithium Technologies helps brands navigate the sometimes overwhelming world of social media marketing and management, social customer service, online communities and social analytics. A leader in the space, they’re guiding brands to build trust with their clients while delivering top-notch customer experiences. Dayle leads the charge at Lithium Technologies on all strategic marketing initiatives.

Bernie Borges

Bernie Borges is CMO of Vengreso, the leader in digital sales transformation. He's also Host of the award winning Modern Marketing Engine podcast. His book Marketing 2.0, was an early playbook in social media strategy. Bernie is also a trainer and speaker. He has a passion for guiding clients in aligning marketing and sales for accelerated revenue results. Bernie enjoys kayaking with his family in Tampa Bay, going to hockey games and you'll find him at the gym at 6am Monday through Friday, rain or shine.